Permablitz #209 – Edithvale pt1

Wooly, rugged-up and eager as can be, a fine group of blitzers trickled in to Tina’s back yard and were met with a garden simply raring to go! Some incredible raised beds had already been built, a monster pile of manure lay in wait, and a solid plan to get it all off the ground was confidently explained to us, by old hand and perma-expert Terry Roberts.

Throughout the day, we learned to construct lasagna beds, wicking beds, how to prune properly and the fertile possibilities of that little nook that sits between the shed and the fence.

Preparing the lasagna beds

Manure to be moved…

Arty!

We began by filling three large beds with green and brown cuttings from Tina’s tree pruning – layering manure, blood and bone and dirt over the top, as well as a piece of pipe that had had holes drilled into it. Lovely feeding posts for worms! Calls of “Coming through!” to avoid wheelbarrow manure accidents were constant, as the manure transfer was executed in record time.

Seila shows the art of espalier on this fig

Filling in the beds

A good place for a wee!

By painting the fence white, we created another area to plant fruit and veg behind the shed, which Terry wouldn’t stop encouraging us all to contribute to in the case we needed the loo.

The first workshop of the day, Seila showed us how he prunes his fruit trees, demonstrating on Tina’s espaliered fig trees that will stand over her new tropical plant zone. Several people got to test their new knowledge, doing so well that we cleared the space for another fruit sapling along the wall.

For the kids, which ended up being a party of one representing his age group, there was plenty of painting of pots, hammering, and arranging of wood into the most beautiful insect hotel I’ve ever seen. Aaron descended on his tasks with gusto and kept us all going with his constant energy.

To all our surprise, the sun ended up coming out from behind the winter clouds and we we found ourselves removing layers upon layers as the days progressed. After a delicious feast, and a yoga session led by the day’s guru, George, we jumped back into action to finish what we’d started. With the lasagna beds complete, we got to start Tina’s planting for her, setting in a mixture of seedlings and designating the new home for several fruit trees.

Nom noms!

Watering in some seedlings

Preparing the piping for the wicking bed

Wicking beds were next on the menu, explained in depth before we jumped into making them with the final two beds. Despite the nail gun proving no match for the hardwood of the raised beds, we made huge progress to be finished up in part two of Tina’s blitz in two weeks time.

Towards the end of the day, tired, but full of new information, satisfaction, and the unexpected joy of a bit of sun on our skins, we left Tina to enjoy our work, promising to return soon to finish the job. We couldn’t stop talking about what incredible garden this is going to be come spring and summer!

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About Permablitz Melbourne

Welcome to Permablitz Melbourne - where we get together and have fun learning about, designing and implementing suburban permaculture systems. Our focus is edible gardens, and our ultimate aim is to make the suburbs edible enough such that should food become unaffordable, we don’t even notice.